cart-load of shoes, hats, petticoats, and other articles of wearing
apparel, picked up. Until four o'clock in the afternoon, most of the
surrounding houses contained some persons in a wounded state, who were
afterwards taken away by their friends on shutters, or in
hackney-coaches. The doors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital were closed
against the populace, until after the bodies of the dead were stripped
and washed. They were ranged round a ward on the first floor, on the
women's side, and were placed on the floor with sheets over them, and
their clothes put as pillows under their heads: their faces were
uncovered: and a rail was placed along the centre of the room. The
persons who were admitted to see the shocking spectacle went up on one
side, and returned on the other. Until two o'clock in the morning, the
entrances to the hospital were beset with persons anxiously seeking for
their lost relatives and friends.
Seldom had such a scene of distress and misery presented itself in this
metropolis. When the gates were opened, a great concourse was admitted;
and when the yard was full, the gates were again closed, until the first
visitors returned from the scene of woe: as soon as any of the deceased
were recognised, the body was either put into a shell or the face
covered over, with the name of the party written on a paper, and pinned
over the body.
The next day (Tuesday) a coroner's inquest sat in St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, and other places where the bodies were, on the remains of the
sufferers. Several witnesses were examined with respect to the
circumstances of the accident; and on Friday, when the inquest
terminated, the verdict was, "That the several persons came by their
death from compression and suffocation."
GEORGE ALLEN.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS THREE CHILDREN.
There can be little doubt that the horrid offence committed by this
wretched man was prompted by insanity; and it is surprising that a jury
should have found him guilty of the crime imputed to him, without
declaring this to be their opinion.
It appeared on his trial, which took place at Stafford in the month of
March 1807, that on the evening of the 12th of January, he retired to
rest with his wife, and that in about an hour the latter was awoke by
her finding her husband sitting upright in bed, smoking a pipe. In
another bed in the same room lay three of his infant children asleep,
the eldest boy about ten years old, the second, a girl, about six, and
another boy about three, and Mrs. Allen also had an infant at her
breast. On his perceiving his wife to be awake, the prisoner demanded to
know "what other man she had in the house with her;" to which she
answered "that there was no man there but himself." He, however,
insisted to the contrary, and jumped out of bed, and ran down stairs.
His wife followed him; but he returned, and meeting her on the stairs,
bade her go back. He then went to the bed where his children were, and
turned down the clothes. On her endeavouring to hold him, he told her
"to let him alone, or he would serve her the same sauce," and
immediately attempted to cut her throat, in which he partly succeeded,
and also wounded her right breast; but a handkerchief she wore about her
head and neck prevented the wound from being fatal. She then extricated
herself (having the babe in her arms all the time, which she preserved
unhurt), and jumped, or rather fell, down stairs; but before she could
well rise from the ground, one of the children (the girl) fell at her
feet, with its head nearly cut off, which her wretched husband had
murdered and thrown after her. The woman opened the door, and screamed
out "that her husband was cutting off their children's heads;" and a
neighbour shortly came to her assistance; and a light having been
procured, the monster was found standing in the middle of the
house-place, with a razor in his hand. He was asked what he had been
doing; when he replied coolly, "Nothing yet; I have only killed three of
them." On their going up stairs, a most dreadful spectacle presented
itself: the head of one of the boys was very nearly severed from his
body, and the bellies of both were partly cut and partly ripped open,
and the bowels torn completely out and thrown on the floor. Allen made
no attempt to escape, and was taken without resistance. He said that it
was his intention to murder his wife and all her children, and then to
have put an end to himself. He also declared that he meant to have
murdered an old woman who lay bed-ridden in the same house.
An inquest was subsequently held on the bodies of the three children,
before Mr. Hand, coroner, of Uttoxeter, when the miserable man confessed
his guilt, but without expressing any contrition. He promised also to
confess something that had lain heavily on his mind; and Mr. Hand,
supposing it might relate to a crime he had before committed, caused him
to be examined in the presence of other gentlemen, when he told an
incoherent story of a ghost, in the shape of a horse, having about four
years before enticed him into a stable, where it drew blood from him,
and then flew into the sky. With respect to the murder of his children,
he observed to the coroner, with apparent unconcern, that he supposed
"it was as bad a case as ever he heard of."
The horrid circumstances of these murders having been fully proved, he
was convicted, and suffered the final sentence of the law at Stafford,
March 30th 1807.
MARTHA ALDEN.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF HER HUSBAND.
Of the numerous instances which we have already adduced, wherein women
have committed that very worst of all crimes, the murder of their
husbands, perhaps no case has been attended with more malice, art, and
cruelty, than that of Martha Alden.
Her trial for this offence came on at the Summer Assizes for the county
of Norfolk, in the year 1807.
From the evidence adduced, it appeared that the deceased was a labouring
man of rather diminutive stature, and lived with the prisoner in a small
cottage near Attleburgh, in Norfolk. On the night of Saturday the 13th
of July, the deceased and his wife were in company with a man named
Draper at the White Horse public-house, Attleburgh, drinking together,
and about ten o'clock the prisoner went away, saying she should go home.
At twelve o'clock Draper conducted Alden, who was slightly intoxicated,
to his own door, and left him there with the prisoner. In the morning,
at about three o'clock, a man named Hill was passing the prisoner's
house on his way to see a relation at about ten miles off, when the
prisoner accosted him, saying that "She could not think what smart young
man it was going down the common." A short conversation ensued, in which
the prisoner said that "she had not returned long from the town, where
she had been drinking with her husband and Draper, and that her husband
had then gone, she did not know where, but that she thought he had gone
to a brother of his, who lived in Essex." It was remarked by Hill, "that
he knew that Alden had let himself to Mr. Parson for the harvest," to
which the prisoner assented, but said that she knew he would never come
back, and that if he got a job he would never settle to it. Between six
and seven o'clock the prisoner was met in the road by Mr. Parson, a
farmer, accompanied by a young woman named Orrice, when she said that
she had lost her husband, and expressing herself very unhappy about him,
declared her belief that he was either murdered or drowned, and on the
following morning she was again seen by the same person, when she said
that she had walked above thirty miles in search of him, but could not
find him. On the Monday evening the prisoner borrowed a spade from a
neighbour named Leeder, with an alleged intention of mending her hedge,
which had been destroyed by pigs, which had got in and rooted up her
potatoes; and one having been lent to her, she went away, and was
afterwards seen at work in the ditch surrounding her garden. Up to this
time no traces of her husband had been discovered; but on Tuesday night
Mrs. Leeder went to a pond on the common to look for some ducks, which
she had missed, and having found them, she was on her way home, when she
remarked something in a large pit or pond, which lay in her path. She
went to the edge of the pond, and touched the object with a stick, and
it sank and rose again; but although the moon shone, she could not
distinguish what it was, and she went home. Her curiosity, however,
having been raised, she returned to the spot on the following morning,
and then she again touched the substance with a stick, on which it
turned over, and to her terror, she saw two hands appear, the arms being
clothed in a shirt, which was stained with blood. The alarm was
immediately given, and the body being taken out, it proved to be that of
the prisoner's husband. It was covered only with an old coat, with a
slop or shirt over it, and the head appeared to be dreadfully mangled.
The face was much chopped, and the head nearly cut off, and other
injuries were inflicted, which could not have been done by the
unfortunate deceased himself. The body was immediately conveyed in a
cart to the house of the prisoner, who was taken into custody. On her
house being examined, the bedding and bed were found to be smeared with
blood, and the walls of the bed-room bore marks of their having been
spattered with the same fluid, but partly washed. Two sacks, also
bloody, were discovered concealed under a peat-stack, and from a dark
cupboard was produced a bill-hook with which the foul deed was evidently
perpetrated, and from which the blood had been only partially removed.
On the garden being searched, a species of grave was found to have been
dug about forty yards from the house, and at the spot where the prisoner
had been seen at work, sufficiently broad and long to receive the body
of the deceased, but only about eighteen inches deep. In addition,
however, to these facts, the testimony of the girl Orrice, whose name
had been already mentioned, was procured.
She stated that she had been acquainted with the prisoner a good while,
and had frequently been at her house. On Sunday (the 19th) the prisoner
asked her to go with her to her house; and when she got there, the
prisoner said to her, "I have killed my husband;" and, taking her into
the bed-room, showed her the body lying on the bed, quite dead, with the
wounds as before described: her account of the state and appearance of
the room perfectly coincided with the descriptions of the former
witnesses; she also saw a hook lying on the floor all bloody: when the
hook was shown to her in court, she said it was the very same she had
then seen. The prisoner then produced a common corn-sack, and, at her
request, the witness held it whilst the prisoner put the body into it;
the prisoner then carried the body from the bed-room, through the
passage and kitchen, out of the house, across the road to the ditch
surrounding the garden, and left it there, after throwing some mould
over it. The witness then left the prisoner, and went to Larling; and
the prisoner slept that night at the witness's father's house. On the
following night, between nine and ten o'clock, the witness was again in
company with the prisoner, and saw her remove the body of her husband
from the ditch of the garden to the pit on the common, dragging it
herself along the ground in the sack; and, when arrived at the pit, the
prisoner shot the body into it out of the sack, which she afterwards
carried away with her: the deceased had a shirt and slop on. The
prisoner said nothing to her at the time, and she went home. The next
morning (Tuesday) the witness went to the prisoner's house, and assisted
in cleaning it up, taking some warm water, and washing and scraping the
wall next the bed. The prisoner took up some loose straw, and told the
witness she would carry and throw it into Mr. Parson's ditch, because it
was bloody. The prisoner bade the witness to be sure not to say a word
about the matter; for, if she did, she (the witness) would certainly be
hanged. Upon being questioned to that effect by the judge, this witness
further stated that she had told the story to her father on the Tuesday
night, and to nobody else.
On his lordship asking the prisoner what she had to say in her defence,
she told an incoherent story, which, however, as far as it was at all
intelligible, seemed rather to aim at making the testimony of the last
witness appear contradictory and suspicious, and to implicate her in the
guilt of the transaction, than to deny the general charges which had
been adduced against herself.
The learned judge then summed up the evidence in a very full and able
manner, and the jury returned a verdict of Guilty.
The prisoner was immediately sentenced to death. Her behaviour
subsequently was becoming the awful situation in which she was placed.
She confessed the justice of her conviction, and admitted that she had
murdered her husband with the bill-hook. She declared, however, that it
was not the result of premeditated malice, but that her husband having
threatened to beat her, the thought came into her head when he lay down
to go to sleep.
She was drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution on the Castle-hill,
on the 31st of July 1807, and there underwent the punishment of death
pursuant to her sentence.
JOHN PALMER.
EXECUTED FOR BURGLARY.
This prisoner, although at the time of his execution he was only
twenty-three years of age, was, nevertheless, an old offender, and
richly merited the fate which befel him.
He was indicted at the Old Bailey sessions, in September 1808, for
having, on the 8th of the same month, feloniously assaulted William
Waller; and for having with a certain sharp instrument, which he held in
his right hand, stabbed and cut him in and upon his head, with intent in
so doing to kill and murder him. In another indictment he was charged
with burglariously breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Henry
Kimpton, with intent to steal, and stealing therein a pair of snuffers.
The facts which were proved in evidence were, that the house in question
was situated at No. 20, Manchester-square, and that, being furnished and
unoccupied, Waller was placed in it, to take care of it, by Mr. Kimpton,
who was an auctioneer. On the 8th of September, at about four o'clock in
the afternoon, Waller went out, having previously carefully shut up the
doors and windows of the house, and he did not return until near twelve
o'clock at night. He then found the house, to all appearance,
undisturbed; but upon his going up to the room in which he slept, which
was on the garret floor, he perceived that his bed was in disorder. He
was in the act of turning round to ascertain whether any person was in
the adjoining apartment, when he was suddenly seized from behind by a
man, whom he presently saw was the prisoner. He cried, "Lord have mercy
upon me;" but the prisoner said, "Do not speak a word; lie down on the
bed, that is all you have to do;" and then pushing him, threw him on his
face on his bed. At this moment a second man, whom the prisoner called
Joseph, made his appearance, and Waller attempting to offer some
resistance, they threatened him with instant death. He, however,
continued to struggle; and having at length, extricated himself from the
grasp of the prisoner, he was running towards the window to give an
alarm, when he was suddenly felled to the ground by a tremendous blow on
the head from an iron crowbar. He managed to rise and open the window,
and cry "murder," but he was again violently assailed; but then the
people below having called to him to go down and open the door, he
managed to escape, and run down into the passage. He was pursued by the
prisoner, whom however he missed on his reaching the ground floor; and
he was employed in opening the street door, when the people without, who
had been alarmed by his cries, suddenly burst it in upon him, and
knocked him down. At this moment the prisoner was seen to ascend the
area steps, and to jump over the gate into the street, and being seized,
he declared that he belonged to the house, and that they were trying to
murder the man up stairs; but Waller was by this time sufficiently
recovered to recognise him, and having informed the mob, which had by
this time assembled, that he was the person by whom he had been so
violently attacked, he was handed over to the custody of a watchman. All
search after his companion having proved fruitless, the prisoner was
carried to the watch-house, and then on his being searched, a phosphorus
box with matches was found in his possession, and a paper bearing the
following memorandum:--"No 13, Edward-street, and a house in
Harley-street; No. 30, Oxford-street, and No. 20, Manchester-square----
done." A pair of snuffers, which was proved to have been taken from Mr.
Kimpton's house, was also taken from him, besides a large bunch of
picklock and skeleton keys.
The prisoner, when called on for his defence, denied that he was the
person who had escaped from the house, and declared that having come up
with the crowd upon hearing the outcry, he had picked up the snuffers
and keys, which were found upon him. He said that he had served in the
navy, and had only returned seven months from the Mediterranean station,
where he had been a seaman on board the Lion, Captain Rolles.
His protestations of innocence were, however, vain, and the jury
returned a verdict of Guilty on both indictments.
Sentence of death was subsequently passed in the usual form; and of all
those prisoners who by their crimes subjected themselves to condign
punishment, and who were tried at these sessions, Palmer was the only
one who was ordered for execution. In the course of the time which
intervened between his conviction and the termination of his career, he
gave evident proofs of his wicked disposition, and of the justice with
which he was selected as the object upon whom capital punishment should
be inflicted.
A few weeks before his execution he formed a plan of escape, which, had
it been fully carried out, would have involved him in the additional
guilt of murder. Finding it necessary to procure the aid of a
fellow-prisoner, he selected a fellow who was also under sentence of
death, to whom he communicated his project, and he at once consented to
participate in his danger, in the hope of sharing in his success. It was
arranged that the plot should be put into execution on the Sunday
following. Palmer and his associate having then excused themselves from
attending chapel, whither the other prisoners and the principal turnkeys
would have gone, on the score of illness, they were to attack the
gaoler, whose duty it would be to attend upon them, and having deprived
him of life and possessed themselves of his keys, they were to make the
best of their way to the outer gate. Here they were aware that they
should meet with another gaoler; but having overcome him by threats or
by main force, they were to secure their escape to the street, where
their friends would be in attendance to receive them. In order to
further their design, Palmer had already furnished himself with spring
saws, to remove their irons; and rope ladders had also been provided, to
be used in case of any further impediment presenting itself to them, and
by which they would be able to scale the walls.
So far as its arrangement, the plot had gone on with perfect success,
when Palmer's companion, being conscience-stricken at the crime which
was contemplated, communicated all that had been determined on to Mr.
Newman, the keeper of the prison, and proper means were in consequence
taken for the security of the prisoners.
Palmer finding himself thus foiled in his object, which he had
entertained sanguine hopes that he should have been able to accomplish,
now proceeded to apply himself to those duties which he had hitherto
neglected. As the period approached for his execution, he expressed
himself anxious that the time allowed him for preparation should be
prolonged; but his wish being conveyed to the Government by Mr. Sheriff
Hunter, it was determined that it could not be acceded to, and the law
was directed to take its course.
Wednesday, 23rd of November, 1808, having been fixed for the termination
of his life, on that morning his sentence was carried out. On his way to
the scaffold he was attended by Dr. Ford, the ordinary of the jail, to
whom he confessed the justice of his punishment. He appeared to be
perfectly resigned to his fate, and expressed a hope that his death
would be an example to others. In order to atone for his own errors, he
made a full confession of every robbery and burglary in which he had
been concerned, and gave many particulars of the practices and haunts of
thieves, which subsequently proved extremely useful to the police. When
on the scaffold, he attempted to address the mob; but his speech failed
him, and his eyes having been covered with a silk handkerchief at his
own request, the drop fell at the usual signal, and in a few minutes he
ceased to live.
THOMAS SIMMONS.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
The offence of this miscreant was of a most horribly atrocious nature.
It appears that he was the son of poor parents, but being thought to be
a likely lad, he was taken into the service of a Mr. Boreham, who lived
at Hoddesden, at an early period of his life. He continued in this
situation for several years; but on his reaching the age of nineteen
years, he was dismissed on account of his brutal ferocity of
disposition, which had displayed itself on various occasions. He had, it
appears, paid his addresses to Elizabeth Harris, the servant in the
house, who was many years older than he; but, by the advice of her
mistress, the woman declined having anything to say to him. In
consequence of this circumstance, the villain vowed vengeance against
the servant and her mistress, and on the afternoon of the 20th of
October, 1807, he proceeded to his late master's to satisfy his revenge
in a manner most horrible and atrocious. There were at the time of his
going to the house, Mr. and Mrs. Boreham and their four daughters in the
building, besides a Mrs. Hummerstone and the servant, Elizabeth Harris.
About a quarter past nine at night, the party sitting in the parlour was
alarmed by hearing a loud noise of voices at the back part of the house,
and upon listening they heard Simmons disputing with the servant, and
demanding admittance. This was, however, refused, and presently
afterwards the former plunged his hand, armed with a knife, through the
lattice-window, and attempted to stab the girl, but without success.
Mrs. Hummerstone on this went to the scullery, from which the noise
proceeded, and opening the door, found that Simmons had penetrated
through the farm-yard, and was within the stone-yard. On her opening the
door, he suddenly rushed at her, and with his knife stabbed her in the
jugular artery, and, pulling the knife forward, laid open her throat on
the left side. She ran forward, as is supposed for the purpose of
alarming the neighbourhood, but fell, and rose no more.
The murderer then pursued his sanguinary purpose, and rushing into the
parlour, raised and brandished his bloody knife, swearing a dreadful
oath, that "he would give it them all." Mrs. Warner, Mr. Boreham's
eldest daughter, was the person next him; and, without allowing her
time to rise from her chair, he gave her so many stabs in the jugular
vein, and about her neck and breast, that she fell from her chair,
covered with streams of blood, and expired. Fortunately Miss Anne
Boreham had gone up stairs, directly before the commencement of this
horrid business; and her sisters, Elizabeth and Sarah, terrified at the
horrors they saw, ran up stairs too, for safety.
The villain immediately afterwards attacked the aged Mrs. Boreham, by a
similar aim at her jugular artery, but missed the point, and wounded her
deep in the neck, though not mortally. The poor old gentleman was now
making his way towards the kitchen, where the servant-maid was; but the
miscreant pursued him, and in endeavouring to reach the same place,
overset him, and then endeavoured to stab the servant in the throat: she
struggled with him, caught at the knife, and was wounded severely in the
hand and arm, and the knife fell in the struggle. The girl, however,
escaped from his grasp, and running into the street, by her screams and
cries of "murder," she alarmed the whole neighbourhood. Several persons
instantly came to her assistance, and whilst some offered their aid to
the unhappy beings who had been wounded, others sought for the murderer.
Their search was for some time in vain, but they at length succeeded in
discovering him concealed in a cow-crib in the farm-yard. He was
immediately secured, and so tightly bound to prevent his escape, that
the circulation was almost stopped, and in the night death was near
cheating Justice of her victim. The ligatures were, however, loosed in
the morning, in ample time to preserve him to undergo the punishment to
which his crimes had subjected him.